The situations chosen for the site of the nest are various, but in nearly every instance contiguous to water and frequently overhanging it; the most favourite position appears to be the side of a tea-tree, the bark of which is hanging down in tatters; it is also often seen suspended in the most conspicuous manner from the drooping branches of the stink-wood; and in one instance Mr. Gilbert found it attached to two slender fibrous roots, hanging from beneath a bank over a pool of water. The nest is generally formed of soft strips of paper bark or dried grasses, matted together with small spiders’ cocoons or vegetable fibres, and so closely resembles the branch upon which it is placed, as to render it very difficult of detection; it is usually lined with fine grasses, zamia wool, the soft part of the cones of the _Banksiæ_, delicate white buds of flowers, or sheep’s wool collected from the bushes of the sheep-runs. September, October and November constitute the breeding-season. The eggs, which are two in number, vary considerably in their colouring, some being pure white without a trace of spots or markings, others having a zone round the larger end formed of freckled markings of light reddish brown; others again are thinly sprinkled with this colour over the whole of their surface, and one or two procured at Swan River were bespeckled with numerous fine freckles of bluish grey; the average length of a number of eggs was eight lines by six lines in breadth. Crown of the head, all the upper surface, wings and tail dark olive-brown, passing into yellowish brown on the rump and bases of the tail-feathers; primaries and secondaries margined with wax-yellow; immediately behind the eye a very small patch of glossy brownish yellow feathers, the anterior portion of which is silvery; throat and chest greyish brown; abdomen and under tail-coverts olive-grey; irides light red; bill dark brown; legs and feet bluish grey; tarsi tinged with green. The Plate represents a male and a female of the natural size. [Illustration: PTILOTIS CHRYSOTIS. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._ ] PTILOTIS CHRYSOTIS. Yellow-eared Honey-eater. _Certhia chrysotis_, Lath. Ind. Orn., Supp., p. xxxviii. No. 16. _Yellow-eared Honey-eater_, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. iv. p. 195. No. 54. _Meliphaga chrysotis_, Lewin, Birds of New Holl., pi. v.—Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 314.—Gould in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part I. _Spot-eared Creeper_, Shaw, Zool., vol. viii. p. 244.